"Personality emerges out of the interplay between conscious awareness and unconscious motivation": Discuss how Freud saw the development of this dynamic from childhood through to puberty. .
Personality it seems is an enigmatic phenomenon, which because of its many discordant facets is possibly a less accessible concept to comprehend than for example, intelligence which has a more scientifically measurable/methodological aspect. There are many definitions of personality, but the most helpful for this essay is that of which defines personality as "the distinctive and characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour that define an individuals personal style, and influence their actions with the environment" (Atkinson et al 1992).
Over the centuries personality has been a source of great interest to many philosophers including Plato who philosophied life as conflicting forces, and Freud whose theory was based on instinctual needs being met or denied. More contemporary theorists include H.J.Eysenck (1916) and G. Allport (1897-1967) whose works focus more on the healthy mind as opposed to Freud, Charot and Breur whose theories developed from within a neurological environment and focused on the psychologically unbalanced individual. Allport believed that "the experience of unique, normal human adults should be at the center of the study of personality" (author + year of "my book" p378) and defined personality as "the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behaviour and thought" (Allport cited in bk (author&yr&page no)).
Considered one of the most influential thinkers of the late 19th Century Sigmund Freud offered a fresh and challenging perspective on the development of human psychological understandings of personality development which then formed the basis of psychodynamic theory.